


"How We Were" (Remembrance)

by Ricochet713



Series: Reaper76 Week [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Day One, Emotional Hurt, Flashbacks, Government Conspiracy, M/M, My interpretation of the Overwatch storyline, Reaper76 - Freeform, Reaper76 Week, Reconciliation, These two loved each other and someone tore them apart and its not fair, UGLY SOBBING, i love these two so much, they kill me but i love them and i need them to be happy please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 08:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9376907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ricochet713/pseuds/Ricochet713
Summary: They were brought together by war, and a war of a different kind tore them apart. The scars are deep, and their history tarnished, but there is a bond that continues to draw them together, even after the tragedies they've endured.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My first work for Reaper76 Week! I haven't done all the days, but the ones I have written fics for are Days 1, 5, 6, and 7. I'll be posting each of them as separate works, all tagged for Reaper76 Week!

The silence was both suffocating and calming. The bustle of the city was too far away to be heard, the skies were empty of birdsong, and even the wind was quiet as it swept cold air across his skin. His visor was held loosely in his hand, hanging by his side; the world around him was slightly blurred at the edges without it, but it felt wrong to wear it here. This was not a place for Soldier: 76.

Jack Morrison, Strike Commander of Overwatch, dead as of six years on this day, stood at the place where he had died, watching dust swirl about his feet. He had visited these ruins on the same day every year, to remember what he had lost, to reflect on what had brought him to this point, to renew promises he had made when he had dragged himself, broken and bleeding, out of the rubble. It was a day that he would never forget, as permanent as the scars across his face and body. Letting his visor fall to the ground, a small cloud of dust rising from where it landed, he knelt down slowly in the dirt to run a gloved hand over the broken stonework, a dismembered Overwatch emblem faded on its surface.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to it, his voice hollow and weak.

A chill crept along his spine, the faintest rush of air tickling his ears. He was not alone, this year.

“You should be.”

The voice was rough, mechanical, distorted, but Jack would know it anywhere. With a quiet sigh, he braced himself against his knee and rose, just as slowly as he had descended.

“So you decided to show up this year, huh?”

He felt rather than heard his companion step up next to him, his dark and dreadful presence cool at his shoulder. “Never had the time.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Jack turned his head to look at the shadowed figure of Reaper, watched the wide shoulders lift and drop with a rattling huff.

“In case you forgot, Jack, you never _actually_ died,” he grumbled.

Jack looked away again, casting his poor gaze across the ruins of what was once the Overwatch Headquarters. “No, but…” he paused, voice quiet when he spoke again. “You did.”

Reaper gave a grunt. “Sort of.”

No easy response came to Jack, and so he said nothing, just continued to stare out at the world. The grey mass above him signalled a cloudy sky; rain could be on the way before too long. Fitting, for a day of heavy thoughts. Reaper made no move to do or say anything, either. As they stood together, his frame became more solid, less shadowy, and the chill that had hovered over Jack’s skin began to fade.

“Would you let me see your face, Gabriel?”

The question was out almost before he knew he wanted to ask it. Immediately, Reaper bristled, shoulders stiffening under his heavy black coat, and Jack bit his lip, regretting his outburst. That Reaper was even here at all was a huge step for him, but if Jack pushed him too far he’d be gone again in a whisper of smoke and shadow. Thankfully, Reaper remained where he was, the bone-white mask facing out across the rubble, thinking – Jack didn’t dare interrupt him. He waited for a long moment before Reaper sighed.

Jack turned to him, holding his breath as Reaper raised a gloved hand to his face, gripping the mask by its sharp cheek bones. There was a click, a hiss, and then the mask was away; without his visor, Jack’s vision wasn’t great, but he didn’t need it to see the extent of the damage to Gabriel’s face.

There were large, black wounds along the gaunt lines of his cheeks. His lips were scarred, and large burn marks covered his face, healed grey by the nanites in his body. Through his broken lips, Jack caught a glimpse of sharpened teeth, and his eyes glinted red in the low light. Wisps of smoke drifted from wounds that never truly sealed over, dead nanites carried away by the breeze. He had caught flashes of Gabriel’s state before, but never so closely, and he’d never been able to observe him so openly; he resisted the urge to gasp or pull away, but Gabriel grimaced nonetheless.

“Pretty, aren’t I?” he grumbled sarcastically.

Jack was unable to hide his flinch at Gabriel’s tone – bitter, cold, angry. It drove through his ribs and into his heart, spreading an ice through his veins. He looked away again, frowning deeply.

“Who… did this to you…?”

“You did.” Gabriel’s answer was without hesitation, sharp as a knife. “Right here, six years ago.”

Jack winced, shutting his eyes. When he did, he saw the burning wreck of the destroyed headquarters around him. Flames licked at his ruined duster, his hands and face were covered in blood, his skin burned away to reveal raw muscle beneath. He hadn’t even realised how severe his injures were; he had staggered through the smoke, tears mingling with the blood streaking down his cheeks, ignorant to the screaming pain in his fingers as he collapsed before the pile of steel and stone and began digging through it. The smoke was down his throat, in his lungs, burning him from the inside out, but he was yelling, screaming, until his voice gave out and all he could do was cry. He had dug until his hands were ruined, until the nerves in his fingers were burned away, until his wounded arms were so clogged with dirt that the infection would nearly kill him in the weeks that followed. _Gabriel! Gabe! Can you hear me? Are you alive? Where are you?! Gabe!_ Voices, over the groan of melting steel, coming towards him. Panic. _Gabe… I… I’m sorry…_

The sensation of tears rolling across his skin brought him back to reality, back to the cool Swiss air, away from the smoke and flames and searing pain – to the dull ache in his chest that had never left him since that day. He realised that he was shaking, his hands and shoulders trembling.

“I… I know. I left you… I left you there to die, because I was a coward. I was afraid of what would happen if they saw that I’d survived… so I ran, and left you. I… I’ve never forgiven myself for it, and I never will. It… It’s not something that I should be forgiven for.”

“No, it’s not,” huffed Gabriel.

Opening his eyes, Jack forced himself to steady, willed his trembling to ease. “It’s my fault this happened to you.” Gabriel made no effort to contradict him. “But I need to know _who_ did this. Who was it that… made you Reaper? Talon?”

Gabriel gave a snort, still refusing to look at him. A stray wisp of smoke spiralled out from his lips.

“Talon? Not a chance in hell.”

“Then who?”

“Someone – or something – a lot more powerful than Talon. More dangerous.”

Jack turned to him, watching him closely. “The same people who infiltrated the U.N? Who manipulated Overwatch? Manipulated me?” His voice went quiet at the last question, his thoughts threatening to wander. The cryptic reports, the subtle threats, the false accusations… the way it had torn him and Gabriel apart…

Next to him, Gabriel nodded. “From what I can tell, they snuck into the U.N during the Crisis somehow, got their claws in deep. They had hoped to use Overwatch for their own gain.”

Jack sighed, lifting a hand to rub his fingers against his temple. “Then they were the ones who wanted to make me Strike Commander. They thought I’d be easier to manipulate, less likely to figure out their game. And to make sure of it, they sent you off to Blackwatch to keep us apart, tried to sever our ties.”

“Guess it worked.” Deadpan, cold – Jack winced again.

He wasn’t wrong, and that’s what cut through Jack the deepest. For the first decade or so, they had made it work – had promised each other they wouldn’t let the gaps in their positions create a gap in their relationship. They were rarely on missions together, but they always came back to each other, one of them always waiting to welcome the other home. It wasn’t easy, and the strain of their separate lines of work took their toll, but together they were strong enough to work through it, to make the most of their time together. Most importantly, they had promised to never hide anything from each other, to trust each other – that was the promise they had valued most. That was the promise Jack had broken.

He had thought he was protecting Gabriel at the time, had thought it was necessary to keep him safe, even if it meant keeping a secret from him, but Gabriel had noticed something was off; he had always been able to read Jack so easily. It had torn him apart, not being able to tell him, to break the promise he had made, but he told himself he had to, it was the only option, if he told Gabriel he could get hurt, they would go after him, he couldn’t…

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, exhausted, beaten, his voice so quiet it was almost lost to the wind.

Gabriel tilted his head towards him, expression unreadable. “For what?” Not curious – expectant.

“For everything,” Jack sighed, looking up at him. This time Gabriel met his gaze, giving nothing away, holding him there and drawing out everything Jack had tried to contain for six long, agonising years. “For letting them make me Strike Commander. For not telling you when I thought something was wrong. For not talking to you when they threatened to hurt you if I kept snooping around. For letting us drift apart. For even listening to the lies they fed me about you. For leaving you to… to…”

He bit his lower lip, the trembling returning to his shoulders, his voice threatening to crack. It wasn’t the first time he had told Gabriel the truth of Overwatch’s collapse, that he had watched it happening and felt that there was nothing he could do without putting Gabriel in danger. When he had first revealed it, Gabriel had been angry, furious, hurt, and Jack was worried that he would be the same now, or worse, that he would leave, and Jack would lose him again.

But instead, Gabriel just sighed, looking away again.

“Even if you had’ve stayed,” he began slowly, “I still would have died – there was no way anyone was pulling me out of that rubble alive. Angela still would have tried to revive me, still would have failed… properly, at least. Good chance I still would have become Reaper.”

“Maybe…”

“As for that other shit,” Gabriel went on, “it’s not like they gave you much of a choice.”

Jack shook his head firmly. “No. I won’t make excuses, Gabe. I screwed up, and you paid the price for it, despite how hard I tried to prevent it. I should have talked to you.”

“Yeah, you should have.” Gabriel turned back to him, his expression notably softer, his eyes warmer. For a moment he simply looked at Jack, watching him, and Jack was content to let himself be watched. “We were always best when we were together.”

At that, Jack almost smiles. “I suppose that’s why they tried so hard to tear us apart.”

“Makes you wish we go back and do it over, huh?”

The sound Gabriel makes is almost wistful as he looks up towards the clouded sky, his shoulders leaning in towards Jack in a small gesture of forgiveness – small, but enough to warm Jack’s very soul.

“Yeah…” he looks away. “Back to the Crisis, when you were leader of the Strike Team. Everything seemed so much better then…”

Gabriel looked back at him, one scarred eyebrow quirked. “Even with omnics trying to shoot our brains out?”

Jack barked out something close to a laugh.

“Even with that, yeah.” He paused. “You know, we could go back to that.”

“What?” Genuine confusion.

“Be a team again,” explained Jack. “Soldier: 76 and Reaper, tracking down the group responsible for destroying Overwatch, making them pay for what they did to us. If we were working together, there’s no way they’d be able to stop us.”

Gabriel half-turned away, huffing. “Jack…”

“C’mon, Gabe.” Jack followed his turn, stepping closer to him. “Can’t you just…?”

“No,” Gabriel answered firmly. “I’ve got business to finish, and I still have a contract.”

Jack had always been stubborn, and that wasn’t about to change. Tentatively, he reached out, his fingers a whisper away from Gabriel’s arm.

“You don’t have to fight for them, Gabe. You’re not one of them. Join me – join the new Overwatch.”

A growl rumbled through Gabriel’s frame. “We’re not heroes anymore, Jack.”

“We don’t have to be villains, either.”

Gabriel stiffened, paused. For a moment, Jack allows himself to hope that he’d broken through to him, that Gabriel would turn and accept his offer, that, at long last, they could begin to repair what Jack had broken, to go back to some resemblance of what they used to be…

But Jack should know better than to hope by now. Gabriel offers the slightest tilt of his head in farewell before his body breaks down, dissolving into curling, wispy tendrils of smoke that swirl above the dust before gliding off over the rubble and out of view, leaving Jack alone in the cold. He gives a long, weary sigh, offers the ruins of the life that once was a final look before turning away, walking off in the opposite direction.


End file.
